


the antari and the hunter

by joanwatsvn



Series: this is not a land of kings [1]
Category: Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Canon-Typical Violence, Mythical Beings & Creatures, holland as the embodiment of white london magic, in this house we don't give a fuck (i say not sleeping bc of trying to get this fic right), nyway what is pacing. what the fuck is that, they're doing the fairytale maktahn equivalent of sitting in the forest n arguing about politics, vor as himself n dealing with this by not dwelling on it too much, what else do you expect from them tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 00:27:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13729251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joanwatsvn/pseuds/joanwatsvn
Summary: legend/ˈlɛdʒ(ə)nd/noun1.  a traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but not authenticated.2.  an extremely famous or notorious person, especially in a particular field.adjective1.  very well known.or: king athos and queen astrid have recruited london's most famous hunter to find and deliver to them the someday king.  the fact that ros vortalis never bought into that particular myth is only a minor detail.





	the antari and the hunter

_“which are you?” the voice echoes in the empty grove, and a second later, it isn’t empty at all.  the man standing by the silver trees is tall _—_ taller than the hunter himself  _—_ and two dark eyes shining black, watching him.  ros vortalis never bought into the someday king, but if he existed, vortalis was rather under the impression he was also hiding._

_this man isn’t hiding._

_“come again?” vor says, hand halfway to the knife at his side._

_“which are you?” the maybe-someday king repeats, head tilted slightly like in thought. “the shadow king tried to drown me in a river.  queen stol wanted to cut me open and bathe herself in my blood._ køt _gorst sent armies to search for me until his money ran dry and bindings lost their power, and the pale twins wanted me strung up in chains with curses written across my skin.  so,” his voice is steady, even as his eyes go first to the knife and then to vortalis himself. “who now?”_

_ros vortalis always wanted to be king._

_he_ isn’t _king yet.  before anything else, he’s still the best hunter in the_ kosik _, in london, and he has a job to do._

_he picks up the knife and drives it hard into the ground, halfway between them.  perhaps ironically, he’s always had a genuine knack with people, even mythical maybe-kings, and the smile he offers is as unconcerned as it is genuine. “i am not a king.”_

_“no?” the maybe-king asks, in a way that makes vortalis feel like he already_ knows _.  the feeling solidifies when he continues “you have a reputation.”_

 _that almost makes him laugh. “oh, we_ both _have those.  if you are who i was sent for.”_

_“does it matter?”_

_“well, it’s as you say,” he replies lightly. “i have a reputation.”  a reputation that says, namely, he never leaves without who or what he came for, that there’s nothing and_ nobody _he can’t find if he wants._

_(it’s just possible he’s found more than he was counting on.)_

_but it seems he has found his quarry, even if said quarry is a myth soaked in blood, hidden in a silver grove.  the maybe-someday king has to know it —_ does  _know it, and vortalis expects him to fight.  for a long moment, it seems like he will.  where the trees and the hill begins to recede, the sijlt follows a path back to london.  the king (maybe, someday) turns his eyes towards it, follows it to where the outline of the city begins its sprawl._

 _something flickers, and just for a moment he looks_ tired.   _sad, bone-deep and heavy.  then he closes his eyes, tilts his head back, like he can feel the faintest hum of magic on the air.  he probably can.  the city has faded over the years,_ magic _faded to the faintest breath, but here, it’s stronger.  a smell of summer in the leaves, in the grass._

they say the someday king took the magic when he left.

they say it’s hiding with him.

they say he’ll come back and restore the city to life.

_vortalis never believed in the someday king, but in that moment—_

- 

“we could do it.”

“stop asking.”

“i’m not asking.  i’m telling you,” vortalis takes a moment to pause, and holland glares back at him. “we could.”

it’s a familiar exchange, one they’re well-worn into the routine of by now.  vortalis still makes the case like he believes he might succeed, and holland has to hand that much to him ; he’s good.  the kind of speaker who could probably rally a crowd around him if he was so inclined, could  win somebody to his side with a smile and a few well-chosen words.  

it's a magnetism some people possess.

holland might not be completely unaware of it, but he’s firm in his refusal every time it comes up.  it never quite pushes the line into _genuine_ argument - it could, easily, were holland more willing to make it one, if vortalis didn’t have a sense of when he might anyway, backing down with easy grace and changing the topic to something benign.  it’s part of the charm, holland supposes, knowing when to stop and what to say.

but he’s not a crowd on the edge of the town square watching idle kings spill blood, not one of the malcontent hovering around the edges of a bar and talking haltingly of revolution.  once upon a time, maybe.  “if you want to win restless fools to your cause, there are easier targets than me,” he'd said once.

“ah.” vortalis had only smiled, like he was delighted by the argument he was losing, like he knew something holland didn’t and was about to claim victory because of it, or perhaps in spite. “you see, i want you.”

and that, inevitably, brought them back around.   _why me?_

_don’t play the fool, you know why._

“together, holland, we could _more_ than take back that throne.  we could _hold_ it.”

“you call _me_ a romantic,” holland had said the first time, disdainful, scornful as he could manage.  now, he says nothing at all and waits for the conversation to move on.  (and it does, eventually, because the only other thing for vortalis to do would be to leave.)

only this time, it doesn’t.

“how many times this _decade_ has the throne changed hands?  when was the last time someone held the throne longer than a year? 

“i don’t keep count,” holland snaps (close to a loss of temper as he’s ever come) and thinks _eleven.  eleven rulers and six years ago._

if vortalis were a man who believed in legends, holland might call the look that flashes across his face disappointment; as is, it’s gone in an instant, giving way to to something like anger, even disgust.   _you’re lying to yourself_ , it says, _and lying to me_ , but holland has been on the receiving end of worse than just _looks_ and unblinkingly meets vortalis’ gaze.  

they are both of them men who love the world, ash and metal as it is, who have dreamed of seeing it flourish.  

 _who left it to die,_ one might say, and doesn’t.

 _corrupt kings and bloodthirsty queens left it to die_ , the other would reply.   _i helped a part of it to live._ and the words would taste like a lie, although they’re not _—_ and they are.

they don’t say it.

that look is still there, though, like an accusation: _you love this world too,_ it seems to say, _do not lie to me._

holland’s never been the type to wear his heart on his sleeve; still, there was a time vortalis would have read him easily.  maybe he still can more easily than most, but holland’s had decades of practice, centuries, at wearing masks, and he’s quite good at it.  he’s had to be.

it’s alright.  it doesn’t _matter_ if vortalis knows he’s hiding the truth, as long as he doesn’t know what truth he hides.

- 

the infuriating thing about holland vosijk is his tendency to disappear.  

of course, phrasing it that way makes it sound like there’s just _one_ thing, and that isn’t true.  there’s many infuriating things about holland, but that one stands out.  there’s only so many places in the silver wood one man can hide, and it gives vortalis the uncomfortable feeling he isn’t _hiding_ at all.  holland simply _isn’t there._

like he’s stepped out of the world, or into a part where vor can’t follow.  he doesn’t ask, doesn’t think holland would answer.  

it’s in the way he sometimes finds the wood _empty_ , and a moment later holland is _there_.  it’s in his longer absences, the way he is sometimes never there no matter how long vor waits.  it’s how sometimes he’s there, and the next minute he’s gone, only vortalis can’t remember closing his eyes long enough for him to have disappeared so completely.  (mostly when he’s annoyed, when their regular almost-argument has pushed one bit too far.)

he always comes back, with an attitude like nothing has happened and a look that challenges the hunter to say a thing about it. 

he has the words for any occasion, but he knows when to hold his tongue.

it still feels odd to refer to holland as the _someday king_ , or any king at all, and for the most part, vortalis tries not to do it.  sometimes, though, it takes him by surprise, small things - casual displays of magic nobody should have the power for; smaller things, a certain gaze or tilt of the head.  there’s an air of something unmistakably _other_ about holland vosijk, something _else_ , and it’s not to do with his eyes or anything quite so tangible.  a sense, a feeling, nothing he can put a name to, something he might well be imagining.  some of those stories have to stick, he supposes.  

 _foolish_ , vortalis tells himself when he catches himself thinking it anyway. _stories for children._

at that moment, holland looks up from where he’s standing, and the words _as human as anyone_ catch in the back of his mind, unable to quite solidify into something certain.

-

in the end, it doesn’t matter if vortalis comes back.  holland could keep himself hidden.  he could leave entirely.  he could kill the man before he’s taken three steps into the clearing.  the hunter found him once by chance.  luck.  he finds him a second time because holland lets him.

vortalis seems to find that funny, and silently, holland has to acknowledge the point.  it’s not that he’s so good at hiding.  in two hundred odd years, nobody’s known how to _look._

 _-_  

_the someday-maybe-not-quite king leans back against a tree, lets himself slide to the ground.  he doesn’t open his eyes.  the silence stretches out into minutes, possibly _—_ it’s hard to count, and neither of them try.  “i’m not stopping you,” he says after a while. gestures without looking to the knife that still sits there, waiting for either one of them. “what is it you came to do?  kill me?  drag me back to the city in chains?”_

_his voice is dry, almost mocking _—_ almost resigned.  not resigned to that fate, though.  just to the fact that he’ll fight it, and win (ros vortalis isn’t a fool, he knows how to choose his battles) and start over, perhaps, or carry on here._

_keeping a small piece of the world alive, watching the rest of it die.  a breath of summer on winter air._

_“what’s your name?” he asks rather than answering, the question surprising them both.  it’s only after speaking it aloud that he realises he i_ s _curious to know. “even mythical magician kings must have them.”_

if you are who i was sent for. _they’re both remembering.  “you don’t believe in mythical kings.”_

_“no,” vortalis agrees. “i don’t.”_

_didn’t._ doesn’t.

 _“so what_ is _your name?”_

_there’s a long pause.  the king opens his eyes, looks almost at vortalis and somewhere just to the left of him. “holland.”  there’s another pause, and— “vosijk.  holland vosijk.”  it sounds like something almost forgotten, something made real by speaking again._

_“ros vortalis,” he offers in return, makes himself comfortable at the foot of a nearby tree so he can meet holland’s gaze directly.  he doesn’t know why it feels important that he does. “my friends call me vor.”_

_holland frowns - at his words or at the cigar rolled between his fingers, vortalis can’t tell.  maybe both.  “we aren’t friends.”_

_“we aren’t enemies.”_

_“aren’t we?” there it is again: the dry, even tone, only the barest hint of a reaction._

_“i didn’t come here to kill you.”_

_holland looks at the knife.  vortalis does too, with a gaze that says_ what do you expect me to do with that? _it stays planted in the hard earth between them, bone-carved handle shining quietly in the dappled light._

**Author's Note:**

> a more accurate title would be 'the hunter and the someday king', since _antari_ as such aren't really A Thing in this au, but this owes everything to vor's line in the scorched bone ("a pretty pair we make ... like in those stories you love") and i thought it deserved a shout-out.


End file.
